Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/845

 INDO-CHINA

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INDO-CHINA

Do not treat all in the same way. Be sympathetic. Constantly study how to get the most and the best out of each student. What are all these rules, as old as the art of teaching, but diverse expressions of the one universal principle: "Appreciate the individuahty of your pupils"? This individuality will often ex- hibit itself in an inconvenient or disagreeable way. It will at times sorely exercise the narrow or unsym- pathetic teacher. The temptation to suppress and crush it will often be very strong. The unoriginal mind finds intense difficulty in tolerating individual- ity. Yet the educator must rememl)er that it is his duty to draw out and cultivate in his pupil every element that is good, to repress only that which is evil; and he should never forget that the individual nature of each is the precious root out of which per- sonal character is to be developed. The chief diffi- culty is in regard to aptitudes and inclinations, which, though in themselves indifferent, may easily make for evil by over-indulgence or want of sufficient general self-control. Thus, an impulsive disposition or an unbending will are traits of character in a pupil which often come into disagreeable collision with the teacher's efforts; yet they may contain some precious elements of the raw material out of which, with patience and by judiciously guided development, a fine type of personality may l)e formed. On the other hand a levelling-down method of education by constant repression and steady discouragement may enfeeble or altogether extinguish what would have been admirable features of individual character.

Oq the Principle of Individuation; St. Thomas, Opusculum de princ. indiv. in 0pp., XVI (Parma. 1865), 32S sqq.; Duns ScoTUS, In II Sent., disp. iii, q. vi, in 0pp., XII (Paris, 189:i); SuAREZ. DUput. met., V, in 0pp., XXV (Paris, 1861): Leib- nitz, De principio individui in Werke, ed. Gerhardt (Berlin, 1875-90); Idem, S'ouve<iux essois sur V cntendemcnt humain (New York and London, 1896), II, xxvii; T^fberweg, History of Philosophy. I (London, 1874). On Indi\-itiunlity and Per- sonality; Butler. Dissertation on Personal lilcfilUt/ in Works, I (Oxford, 1896), 3S7 sqq. ; Reid, Essay on the Intellectual Powers, III (Edinburgh, 1812); Ladd. Philosophy of Mind (New York and London, 1895): Hume, Enquiry coneerning Human Under- standing (London and Edinburgh. 1764): Mill, Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy (I^jndon, lS(i5), xii; James, Prin- eiples of Psychology (New \'ork and London, 1901); .\Iaher, Psychology (New York and I.ondon, 1906). The value of In- dividuality in Education; Mill, On Liberty (New York and London, 1875); Herbart, The Science of Education, tr. Felkin (New York and London, 1897).

Michael, Maher.

Indo-China, the most easterly of the three great peninsulas of Southern Asia, is bounded on the north by the Mountains of Assam, the Plateau of Yun-nan, and the Mountains of Kwang-si; on the east Ijy the Province of Kwang-si (Canton), the Gulf of Tong- king, and the Sea of China ; on the south by the Sea of China, the Gulf of Siam, and the Strait of Malacca; on the west by the Gulf of Martaban and the Bay of Ben- gal. This territory is divided politically into: Upper and Lower Burmah, which belong to Britain; the Malay Peninsula, which England shares with Siam; the Empire of Siam; and French Indo-China, which includes the Colony of Cochin China, the vas5sal King- doms of Cambodia and Annam, the Tong-king and Laos Protectorates, and — although not geographically included in Indo-China — the Territory of Kwang- chau-wan, leased in 1898 for ninety-nine years from the Chinese Government. The length of the peninsula from the Chinese frontier to Cape Cambodia is about 1200 miles; at its widest point, between the Gulf of Tong-king and the Bay of Bengal, its breadth is 1000 miles. Its approximate area is 7.35,000 square miles, or about one-fourth the area of the United States. Its population is estimated at 34,000,000, that is 46 inhabitants to the square mile. In the present article, only general reference will be made to the British terri- tories and Siam, for particulars concerning which the reader is referred to the articles India and Siam re- spectively in The Catholic Encyclopedia.

Physical Features, etc. — While manifesting a

certain degree of uniformity in its physical formation, in the ethnographical relations of its inhabitants, and, to a lesser degree, in its fauna and flora, Indo-China lacks that political unity which characterizes its sister peninsula, Hindustan. As both this want of unity and the comparatively deserted state of the Indo-Chinese peninsula are almost entirely due to the configuration of the land, a clear exposition of the natural formation of the peninsula must necessarily precede every attempt to treat intelligently of its history, civilization, peoples, and produce. In Indo-China we have a vast tract of ter- ritory almost four times the size of France, blessed with a soil capable of producing almost any crop, free from the barren wastes which mar so many countries in the same latitude, richly watered by innumerable rivers and streams, possessing a mineral wealth not greatly inferior to its agricultural possibilities, endowed by nature with numerous superb harbours, the natural rendezvous of trailers between the West and the Far East, situated in the midst of an ocean of vast islands — many of which are unexcelled for the richness of their soil — and yet exhil)iting in spite of all these nat- ural advantages a- backwardness difficult at first to understand. Though perhaps referaljle to some extent to the character of the inhaliitants, the cause of the backward state of Indo-China compared with Hin- dustan, as already stated, is primarily a geographical one. Francis Garnier, the famous explorer of the pen- insula, compared the territory to the human hand with extended fingers. The fingers serve to indicate roughly the courses of the five great rivers which rise in the high plateau to the north of the peninsula: the Song-koi (Red River) flowing through Tong-king, the Me-kong through Laos and Cambodia, the Me-nam through Siam, and the Salwin and Irawadi through Burmah. The upper basins of these rivers are effectu- ally separated from one another by lofty mountain ranges, the geological continuation of the Great Tib- etan Plateau. As one descends towards the south, the river-valleys widen, the soil falls rapidly, and conse- quently the variation of climate, soil, animals, and plants is much more abrupt than that occasioneil by a mere change of latitude. Thus, while the mountains between the river basins were an effectual Irar to the development of a feeling of national unity among the tribes occupying the upper courses of the great rivers, the difficulties arising from the rapid change of climate served as an almost equally effectual check to their natural tribal growth, which in ancient times was effected by migration along the banks of the rivers. In India on the other hand, where all the great rivers, except the Indus, run parallel to the equator, this natural growth of the population could take place without the necessity of encountering absolutely novel climatic and agricultural conditions.

The principal mountain ranges are the mountains of .•Vssam (the Blue Mountain, 7100 feet) and Arakan- Yoma between the Brahmaputra and the Irawadi, the Shaii-Yoma between the latter and the Salwin, which rises to the height of 10,500 feet; the Tanen- taung-gyi Mountains jjetween the Me-kong and the Salwin (Lai-pang-ngoun in the Shan Country, 8100 feet). The mountains between the Me-kong and the Song-koi continue southwards as the Annamite Coast Range between the Me-kong and the sea, turn west- wards on reaching the south of the peninsula, and, thus describing a figure which may be compared to a rude vS, have a very important influence on the climate of the different countries. Another chain runs parallel to the western coast, many peaks of which exceed 7000 feet.

Ethnology and Native History. — The early pe- riods of the history of Indo-China are shrouded in a darkness illumined only by such stray gleams of in- formation as can be obtained from a comparative study of its peoples, languages, civilizations, and cus- toms. It is now universally accepted that its primitive